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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25712122">broken with a flash of light</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stairre/pseuds/Stairre'>Stairre</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Assassin's Creed - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Child Soldiers, Don't copy to another site, Eagle Vision (Assassin's Creed), Gen, Impled/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Paedophilia, It's literally a one paragraph reference to a guy Desmond kills don't worry, Modern Assassins (Assassin's Creed), Pre-Canon, Running Away, William Miles' A+ Parenting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:53:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,874</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25712122</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stairre/pseuds/Stairre</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Desmond Miles awakens the famed Eagle Vision while he's still a small child, becoming just another of Bill Miles' Assassins. Ultimately, this doesn't change much of anything.</p><p>---</p><p>Did you really think that the Isu wouldn't prepare for every eventuality?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>130</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>broken with a flash of light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <strong><br/>broken with a flash of light<br/><br/><br/></strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>–<br/><br/><br/></strong>
</p><p>The boy won’t stop crying.<br/><br/></p><p>William is tired, stressed. A cell of French Assassins was taken out by the Templars only two nights ago, and he’s still trying to stem the bleeding, get back control of the situation, figure out what’s been compromised and what hasn’t. He has no energy for a shrieking, weeping toddler.<br/><br/></p><p>Michelle shoots a look at him from where she’s bent over a notebook, her fingers stained with ink and the phone held up to her ear with her shoulder – she’s been frantically contacting various cells, taking and recording their reports, for hours now. <br/><br/></p><p>The boy has still not stopped.<br/><br/></p><p>William takes in his wife’s sharp look and sighs, rising and leaving the room.<br/><br/></p><p>Desmond’s room is clear on the other side of the house, and the wailing only gets louder as William gets closer. He’ll be trained out of that as soon as possible, William promises himself. The boy is born and bred an Assassin; he’ll have no other life. And no Assassin would cry that way, no matter their age. <br/><br/></p><p>“What is the matter with you, boy?” William demands, as though his two-year-old could answer that. “Stop this crying.”<br/><br/></p><p>Little Desmond sniffs, chubby little palms pressing into his eyes, and doesn’t stop wailing in pain.<br/><br/></p><p>William curls his large hands around the toddler’s tiny wrists and pulls them firmly away from his face. <br/><br/></p><p>Gleaming golden eyes – not soft brown ones – stare back, bloodshot and teary.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p><em>The Eagle Vision.</em> <br/><br/></p><p>Not well documented, but infamous among Assassins. So many of their greatest had had it – though not many of them ever wrote down much about it, only brief references in journals, sometimes. Nothing that had survived, at least.<br/><br/></p><p>Poor little Desmond. <br/><br/></p><p>From the moment his tiny head had throbbed with pain, and his vision started to not make sense, he had been doomed.<br/><br/></p><p>William would never let an asset like the Eagle Vision languish in training for long – out in the field was the best place for it, the sooner the better.<br/><br/></p><p>He never had a chance to be a child before he was a soldier – an <em>Assassin.<br/></em><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>Red is an enemy – Templars and others who wish you harm.<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>Desmond huffs as he blocks a strike, redirecting the fist off to the side, springing backwards out of reach.<br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>Blue is an ally – fellow Assassins and our associates.<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>He retreats briefly, letting the other come to him, before ducking under their guard and jabbing viciously at their gut.<br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>White is safety – places to hide, and places to land if you Leap.<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>He nearly gets caught, but dances away out of their reach on footwork that has been forcibly practised until his soles bled, their fingers barely brushing the cloth of his sleeve.<br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>Gold is objects and persons of importance – both your targets and your patrons.<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>He gets his leg hooked around their calf, and then they’re on the ground – Desmond jumps upon their back immediately, yanking their limbs into a hold, trying to keep them immobile with the meagre weight of an eight-year-old. <br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>And grey is neutrality – not a friend and not an enemy; irrelevant.<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>He gets thrown off after a bit – and what did anyone really expect? The full-grown man he’s sparring with is twice his height and three times his weight. Not to mention a fully trained Assassin with years of field experience.<br/><br/></p><p>“Yield,” Desmond pants from under the inescapable grip the other has him in. <br/><br/></p><p>“You’re getting faster,” his fellow Assassin says. “Good – ” <br/><br/></p><p>“Not fast enough,” Mentor growls, striding forward as he interrupts. “You’d be dead ten times over if you’re that sloppy on the field.”<br/><br/></p><p>The other Assassin goes silent, and retreats from Desmond’s prone form. He knows better than to offer his hand to help Desmond up. <br/><br/></p><p>“Yes, Mentor.” Desmond whispers. <br/><br/></p><p>William has never been <em>Dad.<br/></em><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>Desmond is ten when he is equipped with his very own hidden blade and sent to sneak into a town-house, murder a drug dealer in their bed, and slip back out again.<br/><br/></p><p>The other Assassin with him pats his back as he throws up in a gas station toilet after, and extends the kindness of not mentioning that part of the mission in their report.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>“Make friends with that boy,” Mentor tells him. “Get an invite to his house, a sleepover if you can manage – the documents we need are in his mother’s study <em>somewhere</em>. Do not get caught.”<br/><br/></p><p>Desmond does not get caught. He’s too well-trained for that.<br/><br/></p><p>But he does miss his friend, after, even if it was a lie. He’s the only child on the Farm, except one three-year-old. But the little one’s parents don’t let Desmond near. Or Mentor for that matter. <br/><br/></p><p>The other Novices are adults, recruited from the outside. They <em>choose</em> to come to the Farm. <br/><br/></p><p>Desmond can’t really imagine why they would <em>want</em> to be here.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>He kills a rich white man who funds a large part of a child sex slavery ring when he’s twelve.<br/><br/></p><p>Later, his skin crawls and he swallows down bile when he remembers how he’d lured the man in close enough to make him taste the bite of his blade.<br/><br/></p><p>Mentor doesn’t care, but that’s because Mentor is the one who told him to do it that way. And you don’t disobey the Mentor, you just <em>don’t.<br/></em><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>Desmond is thirteen and pressing his hands against the stomach wound of a fellow Assassin, but the bleeding just won’t stop, and the safe house is too far away, and this brother has always been nice to him and Desmond doesn’t want him to die, he really doesn’t, but – <br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>He strokes the head of a black cat on a balcony when he’s fourteen. With his left hand, because his right wrist was broken when the Templar he’d been sent to assassinate put up more of a fight than expected. <br/><br/></p><p>Inside the bedroom behind him, the walls are painted with blood.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>He scales a skyscraper when he’s fifteen, looks down upon the nightlife of some city hundreds of miles away from the Farm, and thinks about how easy it would be to just… fall.<br/><br/></p><p>He creeps back to the safe house when the sun is just peaking up on the horizon, trembling in the early morning light. An energy drink – too early for it but who cares – ends up in his hand because he cannot stand the taste of coffee.<br/><br/></p><p>The others don’t mention the dark bags beneath his eyes.<br/><br/></p><p> </p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>At sixteen, Desmond Miles becomes Isaac Richardson. <br/><br/></p><p>The Farm is far behind him, and so is the raging, screaming Mentor who’d slashed his own son’s face with his hidden blade after a mission gone south.<br/><br/></p><p>There’s a scar there now. Isaac hates it because facial scars are very identifiable. But he’s used every trick he’s ever learnt to stay under the radar, and he knows his false identity is air-tight.<br/> </p><p>He’d had to get out, he reasons to himself whenever that trained loyalty and obedience rears its head in the form of crushing guilt and shame. It was either this or death, by his own hand or by Mentor’s. Though his own was far more likely; he was a very important asset to Mentor, with his Eagle Vision. <br/><br/></p><p>The streets are tough, but glowing white always marks out safe places to sleep, and gold lingers over abandoned food that’s still good to eat. He’s got it better than most, he knows.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>“Hey, kid,” a male voice calls to him.<br/><br/></p><p>Isaac turns. An older man, late middle age, salt-and-pepper beard and weathered hands. Clothes not old but not new. A large watch on his wrist. <br/><br/></p><p>“Yeah?” Isaac is wary, but a quick glance with his Eagle Vision turns the man a pale blue.<br/><br/></p><p>“I’ve seen you ‘round here,” the man says. “You got somewhere to go?”<br/><br/></p><p>The first instinct is to lie, of course. <em>Yes, I have somewhere. Yes, you don’t need to worry. Yes, I just like to wander about.<br/><br/></em></p><p>But the man is blue.<br/><br/></p><p>Isaac takes a risk, reasoning that he can just run if things turn sour. He’s very good at running.<br/><br/></p><p>“No.”<br/><br/></p><p>“Then come inside here, lad,” the man steps out of the doorway he’s standing in. “I can fix you up something to eat. Something hot.”<br/><br/></p><p>“Why should I trust you?” Isaac challenges.<br/><br/></p><p>“You ain’t got no reason to, I suppose,” the man says. “But I can promise I don’t mean you harm.”<br/><br/></p><p>Isaac hesitates. But the thought of hot food is very appealing. <br/><br/></p><p>He checks again with his Eagle Vision. The man is still blue – in fact, he’s now a deeper shade of blue than he was a moment ago.<br/><br/></p><p>His other sight has never lied before.<br/><br/></p><p>“Why’d you offer?” he asks instead of caving.<br/><br/></p><p>“You look like you could use a helping hand,” the man answers. “I know I did at your age.”<br/><br/></p><p>Isaac lingers in indecision for a moment. But – the man is <em>blue.<br/><br/></em></p><p>“Don’t think I won’t be watching for anything you might slip in.” <br/><br/></p><p>“Wouldn’t dream of it,” the man smiles, watching Isaac cautiously approach. “What do you call yourself, lad?”<br/><br/></p><p>“Isaac.” He watches the man carefully, waiting for any sight of muscles tensing to grab him now that he’s closer, but nothing so far.<br/><br/></p><p>“Isaac, eh? I’m Denzel. I own this here bar – <em>Bad Weather</em>, she’s called.”<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>The<em> Bad Weather</em> is what more religious folk would call a <em>God-send.<br/></em> </p><p>Denzel doesn’t pry, just takes whatever Isaac gives. Which is nothing, at first, but later vague allusions to a domineering father, an isolated cult, and a life on the run from both. <br/><br/></p><p>Denzel takes on these off-hand reveals with aplomb, only glancing over the papers for Isaac Richardson and pronouncing that if he hadn’t been told they were fake, he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.<br/><br/></p><p>Isaac has never had someone like Denzel before; someone who cared enough to actually <em>do</em> something, not just look on with unease only to look away when Desmond had met their eyes. <br/><br/></p><p>Isaac lives in Denzel’s spare room, and works behind the bar. His rent gets deducted from his pay, but he <em>gets paid</em>. He has a source of income, and a bank account that Denzel helped him set up for it to go into.<br/><br/></p><p>He has a <em>home.<br/><br/></em></p><p>He would give anything, <em>do</em> anything, to keep it.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>“You sure are good at breakin’ up fights, aren’t ya?” Denzel says as Isaac slips back behind the bar after escorting a rowdy group outside. <br/><br/></p><p>Isaac smirks lightly at him – because he <em>can</em>, because he can show emotion and not be punished, because he knows that Denzel will laugh if he makes a snarky comment. “One of my many talents,” he replies. “Not that <em>that</em> was much of a fight.”<br/><br/></p><p>“Can’t say I disagree,” Denzel hums. “Nobody seems to know how to throw a punch these days.”<br/><br/></p><p>“Gotta give the elderly an edge somehow,” Isaac says, eyeing Denzel up and down exaggeratedly, “wouldn’t be fair, otherwise.”<br/><br/></p><p>Denzel nearly chokes on his barking laugh.<br/><br/> </p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>Before Isaac knows it, March passes by and Desmond Miles turns twenty. Isaac Richardson’s birthday isn’t until May, so he’s still nineteen, but he’s told Denzel what his true birthday is, though not his true name yet, so there’s a cake sitting on the side when Denzel and he finish closing up the bar.<br/><br/></p><p>Isaac looks at it, his heart in his throat.<br/><br/></p><p>God, he’s been at the <em>Bad Weather</em> for, what, just over a year? Yes, the winter before Desmond Miles had turned nineteen had been when Denzel had pulled him off the street and turned his life around.<br/><br/></p><p>“Well, lad?” Denzel says gruffly. “You gonna eat it or just stare at it?”<br/><br/></p><p>“I – no one’s ever – ” Isaac cuts himself off, strangely ashamed. <em>No one’s ever gotten me a birthday cake before. <br/><br/></em></p><p>Isaac can barely bear to meet Denzel’s eyes, and even with his training, he still manages to be a little surprised when Denzel pulls him into a hug. <br/><br/></p><p>“Well,” Denzel says roughly, “in this here household, birthday boys get birthday cakes.”<br/><br/></p><p>Isaac’s fingers tremble as he embraces Denzel back, trying to remember the last time anyone had touched him in comfort. None spring to mind.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>It’s a good couple of years, the best of Desmond’s life. <br/><br/></p><p>He stops being Isaac, to Denzel. Stops being it to himself, too. He starts to not need Isaac anymore, to not need to bury himself away so completely that he answers to another name without even the silent recognition that it’s a fabrication. <br/><br/></p><p>Publicly, he’s still Isaac. But in those years, he reclaims Desmond from the Brotherhood, from the Mentor. <br/><br/></p><p>Denzel’s voice had been gruff with restrained emotion the night that Isaac had stopped hiding and quietly whispered to him, “Desmond, my name is Desmond.”<br/><br/></p><p>But Desmond looks down at Denzel’s lifeless face, cold in his open coffin, and feels like the world is dropping away beneath him, without even enough faith for a Leap. <br/><br/></p><p><em>Heart failure,</em> they say. <em>He was ill, Isaac, congenital heart disease.<br/><br/></em></p><p>Desmond had known that. He <em>had</em>. But it had just seemed so abstract, the concept of dying without the fall of a blade. <br/><br/></p><p>Denzel’s waxy face lingers behind his eyelids long after he turns away.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>Desmond – or Isaac Richardson, rather – now co-owns <em>Bad Weather</em> with Denzel’s much younger cousin, Marlene. <br/><br/></p><p>She’s in her thirties, not quite twenty years younger than Denzel. She has dark brown hair and a face creased with laugh lines. Desmond’s met her before, in passing, and found her friendly enough. She’s the type of person who’s very good at knowing what to say and when to say it.<br/><br/></p><p>“It’s gonna be fine, Isaac,” she says while they’re going through the records in the office to make sure that everything’s in order. “Denzel knew what he was doing.”<br/><br/></p><p>He glances up at her, warily. “What do you mean?”<br/><br/></p><p>“He loved you like a son,” she tells him. “Don’t doubt your right to inherit from him.”<br/><br/></p><p>Desmond’s throat clogs up. Marlene has hit the nail on the head, and she knows it. She settles back in her chair, waits a moment, and then places a warm hand on the back of his.<br/><br/></p><p>“Ain’t anyone else in this family now,” she says softly. “I’ve no children, and I won’t in the future. I’m glad Denzel found someone like you to love. He always was soft inside, but God he couldn’t woo a lady. Liked his men too much, I think.”<br/><br/></p><p>Desmond chokes on a small laugh. “He did,” he agrees, feeling wounded but smiling. “That he did.”<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>On his twenty-third birthday, Desmond tells Marlene his real name.<br/><br/></p><p>She curses him for not telling her to have his birthday surprise prepared nearly two months early. Then she kisses his cheek and tells him that Desmond’s a silly name but it’s better than Isaac.<br/><br/></p><p>“You never really looked like an Isaac,” is her excuse. Desmond rolls his eyes.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>Desmond turns twenty-four the same week he and Marlene fire three of their workers for dealing drugs under the table. <br/><br/></p><p>Later that night, so late it’s early the next morning, they come back for revenge. Desmond is ready and waiting for them.<br/><br/></p><p>Three pumped up idiots versus a trained Assassin who has never let his skills slip is not a fair fight by any stretch of the imagination. Desmond doesn’t toy, just puts them down and calls the police on their dumb asses. They should’ve just taken the firing and gone, instead of making it worse by getting forcing the police to get involved.<br/><br/></p><p>Marlene is watching through the cameras in the office as Desmond gives his statement, and he knows that she’s waiting. About forty minutes worth of CCTV footage is handed over to the cops before they leave, and then Marlene turns to him, thoughtfully.<br/> </p><p>“You’ve been trained,” she comments. “I thought I was watching some kind of found footage kung fu film.” Marlene’s deep love for cheesy martial arts films was well-known amongst the staff of<em> Bad Weather</em>. There was an old TV in the top corner that played them whenever there wasn’t a big game on.<br/><br/></p><p>“Found footage doesn’t work well unless it’s horror,” Desmond says, “and even then it takes actual skill and good editing to pull it off.”<br/><br/></p><p>“True, true,” Marlene hums. “Were you raised by Mr Miyagi?” <br/><br/></p><p>Desmond goes quiet. “More Pai Mei than Mr Miyagi,” he says after a moment.<br/><br/></p><p>To his relief, Marlene doesn’t press.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>Desmond looks at the motorbike and cannot deny that he is tempted.<br/><br/></p><p>But – fingerprints are needed for licences. He is in <em>hiding.<br/><br/></em></p><p>He turns away, pushing down the anger that always arises whenever tiny things like this are denied to him by his past.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>In the end, it’s nothing but pure chance - chance so slim that it might as well be fate - that Desmond is caught.<br/><br/></p><p>The police station is clearing out their evidence storage, and with the three drug dealers already in prison, the forty-one minutes and seventeen seconds of security footage from the <em>Bad Weather</em> is deleted from the systems.<br/><br/></p><p>But the Templars always have to know <em>everything</em>, and there is a little program hidden away inside the local police database that copies any evidence reports made in it. It also flags any that have since been deleted from the police systems<em> just in case</em> Abstergo want to use it. <br/><br/></p><p>Most of it’s trash, but sometimes a little gem or two appears… <br/><br/></p><p>And, to be honest, the training of an Assassin is blatantly obvious to anyone who knows exactly what to look for.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>“Mr Miles,” says the man who glows enemy red in Desmond’s Eagle Vision, “I think you’d better come with us.”<br/><br/></p><p>It’s late, after hours. Desmond and Marlene are in the small office, shutting the money away in the safe and closing down for the night.<br/><br/></p><p>The Templar has a gun pointed straight at Marlene’s chest. So do the others behind him. Too many to risk a fight, not with both guns and an innocent involved. <br/><br/></p><p>Marlene looks pale, frightened. Having a gun pointed at you in real life is nothing like how you think it’s going to be. Nothing.<br/><br/></p><p>Desmond goes.<br/><br/></p><p><br/>–<br/><br/><br/></p><p>The world around him is strange, fuzzy around the edges. He’s in a crowd of people, but none of them have faces. They speak, but the words are meaningless noise. <br/><br/></p><p>The light is warped and weird, not sunlight, though he is outside. A marketplace. The smells that reach his nose are muted; the dust of the city, spices in the air, the scent of unwashed humans and pack animals. But his nose doesn’t register it as unpleasant, not any more than the urban smog of New York does to Desmond after he got used to it.<br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>“I’ve got a problem; I can’t anchor him to the memory. Too much psychological trauma; he’s rejecting the treatment, retreating.”<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>A voice, he can hear a voice. Female. Desmond tries to pinpoint its source, but it seems to be echoing from everywhere.<br/> </p><p>
  <em>“Desmond, I need you to try and relax…”<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>A second voice, male. There’s something lightly mocking in its tone. Again, it seems to be echoing from everywhere at once.<br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>“Let me try to stabilise it…”<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>Desmond tries to turn his head, to search out the voices – but the body he’s in isn’t responding to his commands. It continues to walk around the marketplace, a stalking gait exactly like an Assassin’s, utterly outside of Desmond’s control.<br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>“Focus. Listen to the sound of my voice. Recognise that what you’re seeing isn’t real, just a picture of the past. It can’t hurt you.”<br/><br/></em>
</p><p><em>Not real?</em> To be fair, there is a certain unreality to it. The light is wrong; blueish white, then reddish white, blurring away the scenery like a luminescent fog. It feels like he’s walking in a dream, partly. <br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>“Damn it! It’s not working.”<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>But it feels so real, in other ways. <br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>“Give it a moment, Miss Stillman. He’ll adjust. The first time is never easy.”<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>He can feel the weight of his boots against the flagstones, how uneven they are. There is the lingering taste of spiced meat in his mouth, like he’d eaten not an hour ago. His lips are chapped and dry, and he can feel sweat on his back, between his shoulder blades. <br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>“We’re losing him!”<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>For all that the light is not sunlight, the heat of a summer’s day beats down on his – is it his? It both does and doesn’t feel like it – back. <br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>“That’s enough, Miss Stillman!”<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>There is a white hood obscuring the edges of his vision. That’s hauntingly familiar, though this is no silk-kevlar armour disguised as a common hoodie. It’s good quality cloth, thick and padded. But most definitely not modern Assassin garb.<br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>“We need to pull him out. Now.”<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>The world is blurring more, and Desmond <em>knows</em> there’s something wrong. It’s like a disassociative episode, only his mind keeps getting further and further away from his body. Nothing seems to be tethering him inside it, and it is far more painful than the typical numbness of an episode.<br/><br/></p><p>
  <em>“All right, Desmond. We’re going to try and bring you out now.”<br/><br/></em>
</p><p>The world goes white.<br/><br/></p><p> </p><p>–</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>“You okay?” <br/><br/></p><p>There’s a woman, blonde hair, white blouse, leaning over him. She was the female voice. Desmond gasps, sucking in air, and tries to lurch upward.<br/><br/></p><p>No use; he pulls against the straps holding him down instead, and they cut in painfully. <br/><br/></p><p>Right, Templars.<br/><br/></p><p>“I told you he’d be fine. He’s a well-known Assassin. One I thought we’d never get our hands on…” A man wanders into the edge of Desmond’s vision. His voice was the other he had heard, mocking and victorious. <br/><br/></p><p>Desmond dislikes him immediately. “What the hell was that?” he asks, throat hoarse.<br/> </p><p>“That,” says the man, pride in his voice, “was the Animus.”<br/><br/></p><p><em>Animus?</em> From the Latin, meaning <em>spirit</em> or <em>mind? <br/><br/></em></p><p>Well, Templars had always had a good sense of drama. <br/><br/></p><p>Desmond had barely arrived at whatever facility the Templars were holding him in when he’d been forcibly taken to a sleek sterile room that looked like it belonged in a showroom catalogue more than it did a lair of Templars. <br/><br/></p><p>There, he’d been pushed and strapped down to some sort of – table was the wrong word. But it was white and horizontal, with a curve for the human spine embedded with metal circles that lit up with circuitry. The head rest was the largest of these electronic protrusions. <br/><br/></p><p>It was, by no means whatsoever, comfortable.<br/><br/></p><p>“What do you want from me?” Desmond demands. “All my intel is years outdated. No use to you Templars now.”<br/><br/></p><p>“Well,” begins the man, smiling like he knows something Desmond doesn’t, which is very likely true, “believe it or not, you’ve still got something that we want, locked up in that head of yours.”<br/><br/></p><p>The man smiles down at him – he’s never stopped smiling.<br/><br/></p><p>Desmond looks at him and thinks <em>sadist.</em> <br/><br/></p><p>“Now,” continues the man, “all you have to do is do as you’re told. The Animus will allow us to locate what we need. If you think to make things difficult, we’ll just induce a coma and still get our way. Think about it, Desmond. There’s no winning for you here.”<br/><br/></p><p>“Why not do that right from the start?” Desmond asks suspiciously. He’s a flight risk and they know it.<br/><br/></p><p>The man sighs theatrically, like this all a big game to him. It probably is. “The only reason you’re still conscious is because this approach saves us time. Now, stop pulling on those restraints; you won’t be able to get out of them without losing limbs. We designed them to secure Assassins, you know.”<br/><br/></p><p>Desmond clenches his jaw.<br/><br/></p><p>He gives his sore fingers a break and stops teasing at the straps, looking for any weaknesses. He’s found none.<br/><br/></p><p>As soon as he’s settled, facing the ceiling again, a curved screen slides into place over his head, one side of the Animus to the other. It’s transparent, but then lights up like a translucent computer screen, backlit by a light blue illumination. Strands of DNA rotate on it. <br/><br/></p><p>“This is the Animus’ user interface,” the man says, leaning over. “It’s a projector that renders genetic memories in three dimensions.”<br/><br/></p><p>“Genetic memories?” Desmond murmurs before he can stop himself.<br/> </p><p>“Yes,” the man says. “Now, memories. Recollections of past events, though specific to the individual remembering the event.” The man looks directly into Desmond’s eyes, some light of callous madness within them. <br/><br/></p><p>“What if I told you, Desmond,” he says, “that the human body houses not only the memories made by that individual, but also all of their ancestors’ memories as well? Genetic memory, if you will.”<br/><br/></p><p>He turns, gestures with his hands, like he’s a professor giving a lecture, not a captor taunting his prisoner. “Migration, hibernation, reproduction! How do animals know when and where to go? What to do?”<br/><br/></p><p>“Instinct,” Desmond answers when the man pauses.<br/><br/></p><p>“Now you’re arguing <em>semantics</em>, Desmond. Whatever you call it, the fact remains: these creatures hold knowledge, <em>absent</em> the requisite first-hand experience. I’ve spent the last thirty years trying to understand why, and I’ve discovered something <em>most</em> fascinating…”<br/><br/></p><p>Desmond feels like he isn’t going to like this. The blonde woman is now also leaning over him, though she is focused on the machine more than she is him. Her eyes avoid his.<br/><br/></p><p>“Our DNA functions as an archive,” the man continues. “It contains not only genetic instructions passed down from previous generations, but also the very memories themselves as well! The memories of our ancestors.”<br/><br/></p><p>“… And the Animus lets you decode and read these DNA files?” Desmond extrapolates when the man leans over, waiting for him to answer.<br/><br/></p><p><em>“Precisely,”</em> says the man, looking far too pleased. <br/><br/></p><p>“But there’s a problem,” the woman speaks for the first time in a while. “This is the specific memory we’re trying to access,” on the interface screen, the animated strand on DNA slides along a fair ways – a long time, Desmond thinks – to a greyed-out section, “but when we try to open the memory, your mind withdraws. You lack the confidence to step into your ancestor’s body.”<br/><br/></p><p>The man laughs suddenly. Both Desmond and the woman jump. “No, no!” says the man. “I don’t think it’s that <em>at all.</em> Desmond here was kicked out of the target memory because he synced <em>too well</em> for a first access.”<br/><br/></p><p>“Sir?” the woman asks, confused. <br/><br/></p><p>The man gestures over to a computer hooked up to the Animus. “Look at the reports from our previous attempt,” he tells the woman. “The Animus got confused; it reads code, and the coding turned from a user trying to access a file, to the file trying to access<em> itself.</em> It shut down the file as a fail-safe, and booted our Assassin out.”<br/><br/></p><p>The man turns to Desmond’s captive form. “You, Mr Desmond Miles, are proving to be<em> very interesting.”<br/><br/></em></p><p>The woman studies the computer screen for a second. “He’ll have to be eased in,” she says. “Start with an earlier memory that he doesn’t sync so immediately to and proceed from there. The Animus will use that time to collect data on how his brain interfaces with its stimuli, and by the time he syncs one hundred per cent again, it won’t misread what’s happening.”<br/><br/></p><p>“We’ll be observing from the displays out here,” the man says. “We’ll be watching the memories, but you’ll be living them. We’re sure to get our information soon enough.”<br/><br/></p><p>Desmond is entirely unsettled by all of this. Templars have <em>mind-reading</em> devices now, for lack of a better term. It’s enough to make his heart beat with fear, because the Templars don’t need any <em>more</em> power over people. <br/><br/></p><p>“Oh, and before I forget,” says the man, “my name is Dr Warren Vidic; it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr Miles.” <br/><br/></p><p><em>Vidic.</em> Desmond knows that name – he’s one of the nine Master Templars making up the Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order. Not all of them are known to the Brotherhood, despite their best efforts, but Vidic is.<br/><br/></p><p>Yeah, Desmond was right before. Vidic is infamously a sadist.<br/><br/></p><p>“And the lovely lady here is Lucy Stillman,” Vidic says, gesturing. “We will be your hosts for the next, well. However long you last, Desmond.”<br/><br/></p><p>Desmond clenches his jaw.<br/><br/></p><p>Below his head, the circular bump lights up, emitting a faint heat Desmond can feel. The screen above him goes bright white, and a quiet mechanical whine assaults his ears.<br/><br/></p><p>The white light spreads, beyond the physical limitations of the screen to encompass Desmond wholly.<br/> </p><p>In a strange way, he can feel his body still lying down on the Animus, but that feeling’s getting very distant very fast. Soon, he is standing in a three-dimensional blue-grey fog, with flashes of coding blinking into and out of existence.<br/><br/></p><p>He’s wearing the clothes he was in the genetic memory they first dumped him into. He takes a moment to study them; medieval in cut, white with red sashes. Leather armour and belts. A set of throwing knives is strapped to his front and a sword to his hip.<br/><br/></p><p><em>“Hello, Subject Seventeen,”</em> says an artificial computerised voice.<br/><br/></p><p>Desmond is thrown into a mind not his own.<br/><br/></p><p>It calls itself Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad. <br/><br/></p><p><br/>       </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay, I'm just going to release this into the wild as is.</p><p>So, this fic was born out of seeing someone complain that Desmond was a 'boring' character and bemoaning that he wasn't as badass as his ancestors. My response to this was basically &gt;:( and so this fic was born. To show that even if Desmond <em>were</em> a modern Master Assassin, it wouldn't have made any difference. You really think that the Cipher would be able to be anywhere but where Minerva needed him?</p><p>I did think about continuing it further, but it would have basically been just a rehashing of the first few games with slightly different dialogue and interactions and nothing actually significant happening. Because that's Desmond's tragedy; <em>nothing</em> he is or does makes any sort of difference to his fate. There's no one point in the games' canon where Desmond can be saved/save himself. So I'm stopping it here and leaving you guys to extrapolate.</p><p>I can also be found on <a href="https://stairre.tumblr.com/">tumblr.</a> Come and say hello! (Though I do warn you that the Transformers fandom currently owns my soul, so there's not any Assassin's Creed content on my blog. I'll still reply if you message, though!)</p><p>Title is from this song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSEVBUTXDTQ"> here.</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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